I have been told by relatives on my father's side that my great-grandmother Helen McCleary was Queen of Fiesta back in 1898. I finally have a little time to research this and am wondering where to start. My father (Helen's grandchild) is alive and well at 82, and I would like to be able to get the entire story. Do you have any suggestions?﻿

As you might know, the citywide festival now known as Fiesta San Antonio started in 1891 with the first Battle of Flowers Parade, traditionally held around San Jacinto Day, April 21, to commemorate the climactic engagement of the Texas Revolution. Within a few years, several other organizations were holding events at this time of year.

One of them was the De Zavala Chapter of the Daughters of the Republic of Texas, founded in 1893 by pioneering historic preservationist Adina De Zavala. The organization began hosting a “grand patriotic Cotton Ball” in 1897, according to the chapter's annual report and newspaper clippings in the collection of the Daughters of the Republic of Texas Library at the Alamo.

The event was covered by the local newspapers' society pages from its inception. At a chapter meeting April 8, 1897, in the home of Mrs. J. J. Stevens, “a ball was decided upon, to be called the Grand Patriotic and Charity Ball,” with “a large portion of the proceeds to be given by the Daughters to the wife of Corp. Parkhurst,” a Fort Sam Houston artilleryman who had been killed by a cannon explosion during a San Jacinto Day observance a year earlier.

The chapter's 1898 annual report says the ball netted $203.45. Of that amount, $100 went to Parkhurst's widow and the remainder to the group's “tablet fund” toward marble markers for “the historic spots so long neglected in our city” — the first imagining of the tablets that would be placed decades later by De Zavala's Texas Historical and Landmarks Association.

The Cotton Ball was named to honor a major Texas agricultural product and required that women wear “no fabrics except those woven from the fleecy staple,” says the San Antonio Express, April 11, 1897. The queen also had to be a homegrown product — “a San Antonio girl and the descendant of an old Texas family.” Mae Cresson was crowned that first year, and her maids of honor included girls with old-settler names such as Eager, Paschal and Maverick.

First held in Turner Hall, the Cotton Ball was moved to Beethoven Hall in 1898, when Queen Helen McCleary starred in the opening tableau, wearing “a glittering gown with trailing robes and a brilliant crown.” In later years, the event was renamed the Charity Ball, eventually was taken over by other organizations and might not have been held every year.

Though there are rival candidates for the status of first queen of Fiesta — originally Spring Carnival — the first official queen of the overarching event, rather than of one of the individual celebrations, was chosen in 1900, when Lola Kokernot, “daughter of a prominent stockman ... rode in the public procession (with) an entourage of ‘ladies in waiting' selected from young women of the city's social elite,” according to Judith Sobré in “San Antonio on Parade: Six Historic Festivals.”

You are welcome to read the De Zavala Chapter annual reports and a vertical file with the complete documents on this topic. The DRT Library is open to the public from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday.

Lore of the links: Reid Meyers, author of “The Ghosts of Old Brack,” will give a talk on the history of Brackenridge Park Golf Course at 10 a.m. Thursday at Homewood Residence Castle Hills, 1207 Jackson-Keller Road. The event is free and open to the public; for details, call Janice Brake at 375-8132.